


Fowl Business

by campitor



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Crack-y, Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Hannibal Lecter is intimidated by chickens, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-02-21
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-14 11:21:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3408719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/campitor/pseuds/campitor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will wants to get backyard chickens. Hannibal is less than pleased.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

It had been exactly two months since Will had moved into Hannibal’s house when the profiler walked through the foyer and maze of rooms and out the back door to Hannibal’s modest yard with a bundle of wire and wood under his arms.

The doctor himself had been in the kitchen chopping vegetables for dinner when Will had marched out the door. A half uttered greeting died in his throat with the slam of the back door and he placed the knife down on the cutting board, wiping his hands on a white dishcloth and following Will outside, curious. It was not unusual for Will to be quiet after work; Hannibal knew that the images of skewered girls tended to stick with Will, clumped and tacky in his mind like patches of poorly rinsed soap. But the other man had had an air of determination to his step that Hannibal had not seen since Will had moved into his house, and the packages under his arms seemed to hint that the profiler had found himself a project rather than a nightmare.

Hannibal slid the door to the yard open and saw the younger man was kneeling beside his purchase, his knees in the mud and his eyes searching for something in the yard. “Will?” Hannibal asked tentatively, leaving his perch in the doorway and stepping out into the twilight. He walked over to the very edge of his stone patio, toes peeking over the precipice as if he were a diver on the high board. He dared not cross the threshold between rock and grass—not in these shoes, at least.

At the sound of the doctor’s voice, Will straightened up and dusted the dirt from his jeans. “I’m going to build a chicken coop.” No hello, no good evening, no manners, mused the doctor.

“A chicken coop.” Hannibal spoke slowly and hesitantly with just a hint of brightness in his voice, much like a mother humoring her child’s nonsensical fantasies. Will, for all of his keen insight, did not seem to pick up on the nuances of his tone. 

“It would be nice to have fresh eggs and meat, wouldn’t it?” Fresher than a kidney from a rude shopkeeper at least, and less morally ambiguous. 

Hannibal eyed the coop supplies with disdain. “I can get fresh eggs from the grocer.”

“Or right from your backyard. There’s plenty of room for chickens here. I thought we could put the coop right in that corner.” Hannibal looked to where Will was pointing and imagined a square of shit and squabbling fowl. 

Will seemed to have plans that Hannibal wouldn’t be able to sway. The fact that the man had went out and bought supplies confirmed to the doctor that Will had put quite a bit of thought into the matter of chickens; Will, when in control of his wits, was not impulsive. Hannibal pursed his lips and tried once again to dissuade him. “What if the coyotes get them?”

Will eyed him incredulously and pointed at the fence around the modest yard. Hannibal bit the inside of his cheek and knew that he had been trumped. After all, Will would surely laugh at his protests about holes in the barrier; the profiler knew that the doctor was persnickety about keeping things repaired and tidy. With a sigh, Hannibal surrendered. “Fine. But they will be your responsibility. I have never been fond of fowl.” And they had never been fond of him, either. Chickens seemed to have an extra avian sense for those who wrung their necks and they always cast their beady gaze on the doctor with an intensity that unsettled even him. Chickens had a mean streak, a moxie fueled by the inevitability of death by cleaver; chickens were unafraid to look the Chesapeake Ripper in the eye.

With a last look at the bundle of wood and wire, Hannibal went back to his vegetables, shoes clicking sharply, like teeth, on the patio. He stared at the carnage on the cutting board, brushed his thumb across the handle of the knife, and then pulled his little grey lockbox closer to him.

Perhaps it would be refreshing to make chicken pot pie with actual chicken for once. Chicken parmesan, even. Ostropel, buldak, galinhada. He flipped through his recipe box and scowled at the possibilities before him. 

\-----

Will had spent hours after work each day building the shelter, sanding wood to make a roosting pole for them (Hannibal shuddered at the number of rungs this perch had and wondered how many hens Will was planning on purchasing). He measured a neat box in front of the coop and traced over it with wire and wooden stakes. Hannibal watched this all from the window as he made dinner. It was good, he thought in an effort to placate himself, that Will had a project; the younger man seemed happier when he had something specific to do. The move from his cluttered mess in Wolf Trap had been stressful, and the profiler had had to make great sacrifices for his lover. He deserved to have this small piece of the rustic self-sustainability he had been used to. It was only fair, thought the doctor as he decapitated a carrot.

It was less good, of course, that soon Hannibal would look out the window and see chickens traipsing through his yard. Will had informed him that the coop was their nest, but the yard was their home. They would need the space to exercise and hunt for bugs.

Hannibal pledged to enjoy the view of his tidy and lush yard while it lasted. Soon it would be ravaged, a killing field for invertebrate, flecked with droppings and feathers. As he skinned the beheaded carrot, he thought of paintings of devastated hamlets after a Roman siege.

The coop was finished when the weekend came. It was an attractive little building, painted a deep red and tucked into the corner of the yard. Will had made the roof hinged so that the interior could be cleaned and the eggs easily accessed. Each end of the coop had little double doors as well, low enough so that the hens could hop in and out of the shelter with ease. Hannibal admired it as he made breakfast and wondered when Will had achieved his eye for architecture. He dragged his cleaver across the whetstone and huffed—chicken architecture!

Two rubber dishes, filled to the brim with oblong pellets, sat in the corners of the wired-off area. It appeared that today was the day when the Lecter household would be graced by the raucous shrieking of birds. Hannibal spent an extra half hour sharpening his knives that morning.

The front door opened when Hannibal was scooping his omelet from the pan; he felt that this was an appropriate breakfast given the occasion, a way to warn the fowl to mind their manners lest they wanted all their children fried for breakfast. Setting the plate down, he waited for his lover to appear around the corner.

Will entered the kitchen with a large cardboard box balanced in his arms. The box trembled as if it had a life of its own, and agitated clucks could be heard from within, along with the occasional rasp of scraping claws, ominous and harsh against the silence of the kitchen. The box shuddered like a beast in its death throes as Will placed it on the floor. “Good morning. Here are the birds.” 

Hannibal did his best to appear indifferent as he leered at them from the stovetop. Will happily scooped one of the groaning fowl from the box so that the doctor could get a better look. 

They weren’t the ugliest birds—two were the color of butterscotch, and the third, which Will was holding, was a deep black. Gently he stroked her head, holding her out for the doctor to see. “I just bought three to start. They’re just a few weeks away from laying, and then we’ll have fresh eggs every day.” Did Will know that he was rocking the chicken gently? Hannibal frowned and watched as the bird’s body swayed but the head, which was the color of blood, stayed eerily in place. It was hypnotizing, like the swing of a feathered metronome. “I had better go put these ladies outside before they escape the box. Did you make coffee?”

Will was out the door with the birds before Hannibal could shake himself from the fowl’s hypnosis. A single black feather followed in his wake, floating up and then landing gently on the center of the cooling omelet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be adding some chapters to this gradually :) Hopefully you enjoyed this crack-y little chapter; this won't really be a serious piece. Thanks for reading, and watch out for chickens--they're always up to something sinister.
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at pigwingstoheaven.tumblr.com. Feel free to send me requests!


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seemed that in this christening of their chickens’ fertility, there was opportunity.

On weekends, Hannibal would make breakfast and watch Will from the window. The profiler devoted Saturday mornings to cleaning the coop; during this time, the chickens were given access to the yard. As he sliced pieces of bacon and added them to the skillet, Hannibal would frown as the chickens squabbled, shat, and scraped at the wooden fence (they clearly didn’t know quality redwood when they saw it). They strutted about the yard, pecking at Will’s shoes as he scrubbed down the inside of their home, avian growls of warning simmering in their throats. Occasionally the black one, who was by far the boldest, would hop up onto the patio, wings flailing, and approach the glass of the sliding door. It would watch Hannibal as he cooked, red eyes beady, feathers shining in the morning sun like blood in the moonlight.

He tended to crack an egg into the pan whenever it approached. Will had yet to mention how often they ate omelets now. 

Though it infuriated the doctor, the project delighted Will, who had missed the clockwork drone of his backwoods life. Every day had had a purpose there—the weekends had been for fishing and home maintenance—and he had enjoyed having tasks to drown himself in. Repetitive, mindless work was the simplest way to chase away the deer that danced through his head. Garret Jacob Hobbs couldn’t catch him on a fishing boat.

Hannibal’s life was different. Will often bit his tongue to avoid saying ‘posh’, but to him it felt too leisurely. The days were often spent in comfortable silence, Hannibal withdrawing to his books and Will to his grading. Nights were spent at social events where Will was stuffed into a suit and paraded around like a prize pony.  
Will had long grown past his resentment of Hannibal’s life. But he found himself getting anxious whenever Friday appeared on his desk calendar, dreading the anticipation of laziness. 

Hannibal knew of his companion’s unease; Will was not a terribly difficult book to read, especially for the psychiatrist. It pained and frustrated him to see Will so anxious, but Hannibal knew that it would pass once Will realized that he didn’t need to scrabble to make ends meet anymore and that he could, for once, relax.

He admitted that he regretted making Will give all of his dogs away. The beasts, which were now mostly romping around picket-fenced backyards and sitting politely in libraries listening to children read, rooted Will in the present better than haphazardly drawn clocks, and they gave him something to focus on. Perhaps, thought Hannibal as he poured some coffee beans into the grinder, the chickens would be an appropriate substitute. They certainly lacked the affection of a canine—there was a harsh squawk from outside, a flutter of feathers, and Hannibal saw Will dancing away from the coop clutching at his hand—but they required maintenance, and Hannibal felt that the work, rather than the company, was what had drawn Will to pets. Perhaps he felt more secure with a troupe of mutts on his property too. Chickens, he mused blithely as he watched Will lift his scratched hand to his mouth, would make an excellent replacement for guard dogs. 

Regardless, what was done was done. Hannibal couldn’t exactly go barging into libraries and stealing the dogs back, though he knew his partner would have no qualms about that. Flipping the omelet in the pan, Hannibal supposed that they would just have to make do and ride out this storm of discontent and feathers together. 

He wasn’t particularly pleased by the nature of the transition; Hannibal had dreamed that it would go smoothly, though his logic told him that Will lived a life of rough and ragged surfaces and that ‘smooth’, like ‘sleep’, were words in the dictionary rather than realities for the man. 

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of this transition to a shared lifestyle was the absolute destruction of the couple’s sex life. When distressed, Will loathed touch. He skittered away from gentle caresses, and grew comatose during intercourse. And while Hannibal was a patient man and polite enough to respect this aspect of Will’s nature, he found himself growing anxious with the lack of physicality in their relationship.

Usually the younger man was the one to initiate their romps, but for the first week of their new lifestyle Hannibal had tried to engage Will, ghosting his hands on his thigh, even going so far as to lower himself to offer fellatio, an act he despised primarily because of the overwhelming urge to chomp. But the profiler had refused, citing the classic litany of headaches and long days, and so Hannibal had stopped his advances. Will would engage him when he felt comfortable doing so. 

The doctor was a grown man, exiting the prime of his life and entering the period where he would start receiving postcards in the mail about Viagra. Yet thirteen weeks after Will had moved in, he was struggling with an unsatisfied libido. He reflected on his current unfulfilled state with a sigh, watching the omelet bubble in the pan.

Hannibal Lecter was horny and desperate. It was a humbling admission.

It was a strange feeling, falling along the lines of that sort of sticky, restrictive warmth that one felt when wearing rubber gloves. Though Hannibal often felt desire, he rarely felt that sultry, cloying lust that came with teenage hormones and pent up hunger. Like everything else in his life, his sex drive was carefully monitored, carefully controlled. If Hannibal would not allow disorder elsewhere in his home and mind, then he certainly would not allow disorder in his genitalia. 

The swish and slam of the back door shook him from his ruminations; in clomped Will, who was beaming. The hand that had been mauled was criss-crossed with red lines and formed into a loose fist. Gently, the profiler discarded whatever he was holding on the counter, reaching down to wipe the dirty hand on the leg of his jeans. Hannibal looked up from his cooking to see what Will had taken from the hens.

It was a little egg, tiny compared to the ones Hannibal had used to make his omelet, a rich and smooth brown that was the color of cinnamon. It was a little fatter than a typical egg, a little misshapen, but an egg nonetheless. “One of the brown ones laid it this morning,” Will said almost reverently, clasping his hands together. 

Hannibal picked the egg up between his broad fingers, holding the tiny thing up to his eyes. He took his spatula and transferred his finished breakfast from the pan to a plate. Then, delicately, he cracked the little egg against the side of the pan and a small yolk slid out, the brilliant yellow eye miniscule. As it sizzled, Will explained, “They’ll get bigger, of course, but it’ll take a few weeks.”

Hannibal shifted it a centimeter with the spatula. “It’s like cooking a quail egg.”

“Shall we eat it?”

“Yes. Of course. A toast to the newest additions of our household.” 

The yolk popped and sizzled away for a few minutes; when it was finished, Hannibal placed the egg on a small plate, pulling two forks from his silverware drawer and handing one to Will. “I was told by a farmer in Venice once that the first eggs taste the best. They’re sweeter, he said.” 

Will hummed a happy note of acknowledgement, spearing a piece of the egg on his fork and lifting it to his lips. The ghost of a grin teased at the corner of his mouth as he wrapped his lips around the utensil. Hannibal watched the display and wet his own mouth, tracing the swell of his lover’s lips with his eyes, watching the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed the bit of yolk.

It seemed that in this christening of their chickens’ fertility, there was opportunity. 

Hannibal swallowed his own bit of egg and circled around the kitchen island, standing behind Will and pressing his hips to the other man’s rear eagerly. “We should celebrate,” he rasped, his teeth reaching for the lobe of Will’s ear. Will made a little humming noise in his throat, tilting his head to the side and reaching back to card a hand through the other’s disheveled morning hair. 

Nipping at Will’s ear, Hannibal rolled his hips against the other’s ass and then flipped him around, pressing the small of Will’s back into the counter. The doctor’s arms boxed the other man in, hands reaching up to splay against the cold stone of the counter. This was how things should be, he thought distantly, mouth descending onto Will’s exposed neck. Their weekends should be spent in sultry leisure rather than anxiety. Will huffed and twisted in the cage of his arms, offering more of his throat for the doctor to lick and bite.  
  
It was a silly to initiate sex as a celebration of a chicken preforming its natural functions, but Hannibal couldn’t complain because it was working—Will was already growing hard against the doctor’s hip. It seemed that their celibacy had affected the younger man just as strongly as it had affected him. Hannibal rumbled into Will’s neck, bucking his hips against the other man’s clothed erection, earning a small gasp for his trouble. “Hannibal….”

“I missed this.” The last word was accented with a harsh bite to Will’s jugular. “I’ve missed you.” His mouth slid up to pepper kisses along his jaw. Will’s eyes fluttered shut.  
  
Eagerly Hannibal reached down to rub at Will’s erection through his pants, listening to the other man’s pants and moans. With deft hands he undid the button of the profiler’s ratty work jeans, pushing the fabric down a little and then dipping his hand into the other’s boxers. He wrapped his hands around Will’s member, giving it a squeeze and swiping his thumb across the tip. Will lolled his head back, letting out a sweet and needy moan…

…one that was answered by the growling groan of a chicken. 

The black hen had apparently snuck through the door when Will had brought the egg in and had strutted around Hannibal’s house while they two men had been busy. It was staring at them critically, bobbing its crimson head up and down. 

Hannibal Lecter had never hated a bird more.

“Oh,” said Will softly, disentangling from his dour lover and buttoning his pants back up. “How did you get in here?” He walked over to the hen and picked her up; the bird made a point of shitting on Hannibal’s floor just as she was lifted. “Let’s get you back outside.” 

Will tucked the bird under his arm with a sheepish grin, shrugging at Hannibal and heading outside to round up the vagrant fowl.

Hannibal sighed as the back door slammed. He looked solemnly at the glob of white marring his floor, then sullenly at Will as he ran his hand up and down the hen’s back on their way to the coop, and finally somberly to the butterscotch hens grinding their beaks against his fence.

Interrupted by a nosy chicken. Things had been going quite well before that bird had felt the need to speak up; Hannibal almost wished that it had just continued its rounds through his house, making a mess and surely destroying a pillow or a sock. With a sigh, he slumped against the counter, eyeballing his abandoned omelet.

What was that word that he had heard Beverly Katz use once? Ah, yes—cock-blocked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! This might be the last chapter posted for a bit since unfortunately there isn't a ton of content with chickens and I currently don't have any ideas for further chicken adventures. However, this is not the end of the Baltimore Chicken War of 2015.
> 
> I was thinking of writing a more serious fic; perhaps something with a supernatural twist, involving Hannibal and the wendigo (potentially shapeshifting and monsters and all that jazz). I'd love for an interest check on that idea. I'm jones'ing to write some Hannibal, but I'd also really like to write something with a fantasy/spooky twist to it, so why not both? Hannibal lends itself so nicely to supernatural elements.
> 
> Feel free to send me requests, ideas, feedback, and hellos on tumblr!  
> pigwingstoheaven.tumblr.com


End file.
